All Things Trojan

Happy Independence Day!

Adam Rose — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 11:19:39 -0700

Enjoy today, which roughly begins the one month countdown to college football in our fair city.

Happy Birthday, America!

Name Recognition

Adam Rose — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:48:23 -0700

I know it's the offseason because I'm having way too much fun (and trouble) with this game.

The rules are simple: Type the name of every school in the BCS conferences in 12 minutes or less. You can type them in any order, and several variations of a school's name will count. It's the honor code here, so no looking at a map or anything like that.

As simple as it sounds, it's tough to remember ALL of them. Proficiency in geography isn't enough. Apparently, neither is obsession with college sports. I barely cracked 70% on the first try. Heaven help me if they add the WAC and Sun Belt.

What's even more interesting is to look at how often each school is named when people play. The sample set is getting pretty large (almost 10,000 have tried as of this post). Among the schools they named:

USC and UCLA are both remembered by just above 90% of participants, obviously linked in the minds of college sports fans everywhere.
Three other Pac-10 schools (Oregon State, Washington State, Arizona State) are also clumped together around 86%.
Only about two-thirds of people think of Notre Dame. (Note that they don't actually use the term "BCS," and not everybody remembers that other Irish teams play in the Big East.)
North Carolina is the fourth most frequently named school, but Duke is 16th.
Florida, with recent success in both football and basketball, is the No. 1 named school at 94.4% of participants.
Providence College is the most forgotten, with 43.9%. No indication how many people erroneously tried schools like Hawaii or Boise State, but I wonder if they were named more frequently!

Getting in the Olympic Spirit

Adam Rose — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:37:05 -0700

As USC's list of 2008 Olympians starts to grow, TrojanTV All Access is putting together a series of athlete profiles. Here's a look at:

Amy Rodriguez, USA, Soccer
Rebecca Soni, USA, Swimming
Klete Keller, USA, Swimming
Larsen Jensen, USA, Swimming
Ous Mellouli, Tunisia, Swimming

You have to login, but registration and all of the videos are free.

There are plenty of other USC athletes with Beijing in their sights. Trojans are looking forward to competing in sports such as volleyball (indoor and beach), track, water polo and distance swimming. The cardinal and gold will also represent a diverse range of countries, including Hungary, India and Canada.

Great Mark Sanchez Interview

Adam Rose — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:23:19 -0700

USC starting quarterback Mark Sanchez was on "The Sports Lodge" yesterday with Roger Lodge and Dave Smith. Sanchez gave a great recap on where things are with offseason practices, the ongoing competition for his job, expectations for 2008 and what it's like being one of the most recognizable guys on campus:

This 12-minute interview demonstrates a lot of the qualities that make Sanchez a natural leader.

For more of the "The Sports Lodge," tune in to KLAA-AM (830) weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m.

Wednesday Hot Links

Adam Rose — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:22:31 -0700

Football

Here's a great article on Kenechi Udeze's road to recovery from leukemia. [ESPN]
Eight reasons for Pete Carroll's success. [Success Magazine]
Steve Sarkisian makes Dennis Dodd's list of top offensive coordinators, but Norm Chow is No. 1. [CBS Sports]
Bruce Feldman says USC has the fifth toughest nonconference schedule. Four Pac-10 teams made his top six. [SI]
Pete Carroll speaks about his charity work and a little about next season. [KCBS video]
Byron Moore de-commits from UCLA, heads to USC. [LA Times]
An early look at the Ohio State game. [USCFootball.com]
USC alum and NFL coach Jeff Fisher speaks about the dangers of being a pro football player at the league's rookie symposium. [NFL]

Hoops

A website lists an NBA post-draft party as hosted by O.J. Mayo and "Devon" Jefferson. If it's even true to begin with, I wonder if "Devon" made an appearance. [Baller Alert]

Elsewhere

Hometown paper profiles 1948 Trojan Olympian. [Eureka Times-Standard]
Arizona to practice and stay at an Army base. [Arizona Star]

Pac-10 Prospectus, Tentative USC Schedule Released

Adam Rose — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 11:50:55 -0700

The Pac-10 released its 2008-09 men's basketball prospectus, including tentative schedules. Among the early stats: USC forward Taj Gibson is the league's returning leader in blocked shots. The junior has 153, 42 shy of Sam Clancy's USC record for a career. Arizona State senior Jeff Pendergraph returns second in the league with 101.

To download the two-page USC capsule (PDF), click here.

To download the entire thing (PDF), click here.

If your computer can't open PDFs, USC's schedule is listed after the jump.

Mon., Nov. 3 Exhibition

Sat., Nov. 15 UC Irvine

Tues., Nov. 18 New Mexico State

Thurs., Nov. 20 at San Juan Shootout (1)

Fri., Nov. 21 at San Juan Shootout (1)

Sun., Nov. 23 at San Juan Shootout (1)

Fri., Nov. 28 Tennessee-Martin

Thurs., Dec. 4 at Oklahoma (2)

Sat., Dec. 13 San Francisco

Mon., Dec. 15 Pepperdine

Sat., Dec. 20 North Dakota State

Mon., Dec. 22 Georgia Tech

Sun., Dec. 28 Oral Roberts

Fri., Jan. 2 at Oregon

Sun., Jan. 4 at Oregon State

Sat., Jan. 10 UCLA

Thurs., Jan. 15 Arizona

Sat., Jan. 17 Arizona State

Thurs., Jan. 22 at Washington

Sat., Jan. 24 at Washington State

Thurs., Jan. 29 Stanford

Sat., Jan. 31 California

Wed., Feb. 4 at UCLA

Thurs., Feb. 12 at Arizona State

Sat., Feb. 14 at Arizona

Thurs., Feb. 19 Washington State

Sat., Feb. 21 Washington

Thurs., Feb. 26 at California

Sat., Feb. 28 at Stanford

Thurs., Mar. 5 Oregon State

Sat., Mar. 7 Oregon

Mar. 11-14 Pac-10 Tournament (3)

(1) San Juan Shootout, San Juan, Puerto Rico

(2) Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series

(3) Los Angeles (Staples Center)

Malik Story Headed to Indiana

Adam Rose — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 11:17:32 -0700

Former Artesia prep star Malik Story, originally a USC commit, is officially going to Indiana.

From Varsity Times Insider:

Story opened plenty of eyes during his sophomore and junior seasons for Artesia and it appeared as if the Trojans had a keeper on their hands. Then things quickly fell apart. He transferred to Mouth of Wilson (Va.) Oak Hill Academy, left for undisclosed reason, and ultimately figured USC was no longer the place for him. End of Story.

Image Problem?

Adam Rose — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:16:11 -0700

Alabama sports attorney Donald Maurice Jackson self-published a book last year called "Fourth Down and Twenty-Five Years to Go: The African American Athlete and the Justice System." According to Barnes & Noble, he "attacks the high incidence of criminality and irresponsible conduct among African American athletes as well as the root causes of their inappropriate behavior." I hadn't heard about the book before, but a column from today's Alabama Press Register caught my eye:

Jackson says a lot of the current problems derive from the media and advertisements for commercial products which dictate to young people that "it's acceptable or even preferable to have street credibility and if you don't have some kind of affiliation with unsavory types then you (should) at least comport yourself to make people believe that you do."

Jackson points toward various schools, such as Miami — which is now cleaning up its image — and Southern Cal as being part of the problem.

"For example, I love rap music," Jackson said, "but USC has Snoop Dogg walking around the sidelines and when you connect your program to that element, you are inviting this."

Snoop worries me a lot less than others, but I'd be curious to know if anybody reading this has also read Jackson's book ... and what you thought about it.

UPDATE: Conquest Chronicles made an interesting point about this. Considering who's been roaming the USC sidelines, the school doesn't have a single point in the Fulmer Cup -- the internet's finest measure of misbehavin' programs.

[h/t Da Wiz]

Monday Hot Links

Adam Rose — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:44:45 -0700

Football

Hugh Hewitt predicts destruction of USA and USC. [Media Matters]
Athlon's ranking of Pac-10 fantasy wide receivers is out. Although four Trojans are in the top 10 and five in the top 14, notice that nobody has really emerged as the go-to guy in this promising but still unproven group. [Athlon]
Todd McNair makes Dennis Dodd's list of top running back coaches. [CBS]
Chauncey Washington signs with the Jags. Salary info in the link. [ESPN]
Six Trojans make this list of the top 100 NFL draft prospects of 2009. [NFL Draft Dog]
Better late than never! Some great new photos are out from Spring Huddle. [Valley Trojan]

Hoops

Here's a great inside look at what prompted the Mayo-Love trade. [Press-Enterprise]
More analysis of the Mayo-Love trade. [ESPN Video]
DeMar DeRozan appears at No. 2 on Chad Ford's 2009 draft board. [ESPN]

Elsewhere

Katherine Loker, USC donor, died last week. [LA Times]
Here's an interesting look at jock dorms. [Birmingham News, h/t Da Wiz]

Another Moment of Facebook Zen

Adam Rose — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 13:12:38 -0700

It's important to appreciate yourself once in a while.

Facebook, the most popular social networking website in the college world, has a feature that allows people to become "fans" of bands, teams, athletes or just about anything. As part of their "news feed," friends can be alerted whenever you pronounce your fanhood for somebody. Like O.J. Mayo.

Glad we cleared that up.

In case you were wondering, Pete Carroll is part of a Facebook group called "I Stand at USC Football Games" and is ranked as a waterboy in one of the trivia contests.

[Note: No guarantee that the O.J. Mayo from the screen shot above is the same one who just joined the ~~Timberwolves~~ Grizzlies--you never know on the Internet. Chris Hansen, is that you?]